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Thank you for writing this. I have been subscribed to r/depression for a long long time now and used to visit it every day. It was very comfortable to wallow in the sorrow and pain, as odd as that sounds.

But this made me unsubscribe. Part of me know that's a good thing. Thanks.

Thank you for writing this. As someone who just started therapy it helps a lot to deal with the shame that I have with going to therapy in the first place.

You mentioned something I've always struggled with:

Because I was meditating on brains for school (and it actually interested me) I think it really helped me accept the fact that the emotions I was experiencing weren't my own so to speak.

Could you elaborate on this? I'm starting to realize there are certain thoughts, almost like a different person, that continues that negative thought pattern. However, I absolutely believe those negative thoughts, whether it comes from me or not.

I read that someone kept a nail file with them as much as possible and filed down their cuticles and loose skin. I have tried it and so far it works really well. Instead of pulling it to make it worse, filing it down stops it at its root.

Yeah well I bet you don't show it in the office either. We are often good at hiding ourselves from everyone else.

But being more of an adult isn't out of your reach. Find a hobby. Find a hobby with a friend. Plan a trip. I know that last one sounds crazy, but for the first time in my life I'm traveling far away by myself to visit a friend. Does it make me an adult? I still don't think so.

You'd be surprised how often people feel like this. I am a 12 year old child with a beard and a job. People look and talk to me like I am their age, but I just want to shake them by the shoulders and scream why they don't see how much this is a costume!

The sad part? Most everyone feels like that. People from our age to 80 feel like they are still a kid, not in control of their emotions, running around like a chicken without a head.

Except one day, we will be the ones staring at kids our age, knowing how they feel because we felt it too, and more than likely feel it still, not knowing how to handle a mortgage or a kid or some other scary life event.

But I do try to improve it. I go to parties, concerts, hang out with friends every weekend. I stay constantly busy. It is inevitable that on the ride home I notice that still nothing changes. My only option is a life change, and tackling that is long overdue.

That first sentence really stopped me in my tracks. You are right, measurements of time is a poor gague for value. However, I meant it in the sense that spending all that time in anguish is something that I don't value highly. If that is the cost for life, I don't want it. The cost is too high.

Yes, the universe is infinite and astounding and fascinating. This is all true, but will I experience enough of it to make it worthwhile? To make the struggle a journey of twists and turns that I can appreciate? Or will I sit in a cubicle until I retire, allowed my 2 weeks of freedom and weekends of hiking and hobbies I use to fill my time? I understand that "it's all up to me, Carpe diem" and that bullshit, but I have not the desire to get out of bed every morning, much less talk to a girl, and certainly not enough to hop on a plane and follow some kind of movie trope dream.

As for the God thing, I don't believe a spooky omnipotent being exists either, for some reason I read that you thanked god every day for what you experience and that you have overcome these hurdles. My apologies!

I do not mean to be rude or anything, but why are you thankful? Why should you thank God when half of your life was wasted? The better half, at that. Why should I thank God that i consider the last 7 years of my life, my entire existence as an adult human, a useless waste of time with way more suffering than benefit?

Well, I don't think it is an illusion. There are many of us who all feel the same way but we are still alone. Like Billy Joel says, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone.

Often I feel like I make everyone's life around me harder. It's not true. I know I've done some good and helped people, but that feeling is often there.

When we don't like being with ourselves it's hard to fathom that others would like to be around us. You have to be around you all the time. They don't. They really might enjoy parts of you that you don't see.

This is why I come to this sub. People say things that so perfectly describe how I feel that it's creepy. It's something that I have felt for a long time but never found the capacity to put it so eloquently.

To me that sounds like insecurity. When I am dating someone I take pride in knowing that we desire each other and want only each other all the time to the point where it becomes a hunger, but I would never want someone to have a "she can only hang out with me, ever" mentality.